


i have always lived in a haunted house

by lectered



Category: Original Work
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, POV First Person, Referenced body image issues, Self-Indulgent, Suicidal Thoughts, Supernatural Elements, cute i guess if you’re a weirdo like i am, fantasy at its finest, got a crush on the ghost boy, i just like the idea of having a ghost guardian, it’s just mentions mostly, nobody has names again bc i just don’t do those i guess, pure drivel tbh, self indulgent ending get over it, this is how i wish my childhood went, this seems weirdly trigger heavy but it’s really not, where is my ghost boyfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:33:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26887411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lectered/pseuds/lectered
Summary: something about the way i have felt myself watched in the dark makes me feel like the presence is a not so secret admirer, constantly looking out for me. always seeing me, even when i’ve felt forgotten by everything and everyone else. he’s always been there.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 1





	i have always lived in a haunted house

**Author's Note:**

> more insert-yourself original work i do not expect to be read, but need to archive somewhere. :) i’m a pathetic mess.

i have always lived in a haunted house. 

some people have skeletons in their closets. other people are scared of monsters under their beds. but me, i’ve always known about my ghost. he has always been just out of my line of sight, around a corner somewhere, moving things around. he’s never scared me. and maybe it’s been unfair to even call my ghost a he, because i guess i never knew what it was. but something about the way i have felt myself watched in the dark makes me feel like the presence is a not so secret admirer, constantly looking out for me. always seeing me, even when i’ve felt forgotten by everything and everyone else. he’s always been there. 

i remember the house i grew up in. i remember the worst nightmare i ever had, and i woke up in a black room, screaming, hair plastered to my face with sweat. i remember being the most scared i’ve ever been, and before my mom even made it into my room i remember the closet light clicking on. the closet door was cracked halfway, but in the darkness of my room that light came spilling out, chasing away the remnants of my nightmare. my tears had stopped by the time my mom threw my door open. something had already comforted me. 

i remember 6th grade. i had just gotten braces, and my mom was working overnights. i tried to sleep, in the empty house, but my mouth hurt worse than anything i could imagine and i tossed and turned, crying. so tired i couldn’t keep my eyes open, i laid in my bed miserably until i vaguely felt my sheets pull up around me and a warmth against my cheek. the warmth put me to sleep. when i woke my mom told me that a heat pack was a good idea if my teeth were bothering me, and praised my ingenuity. i couldn’t tell her that i wasn’t the one who thought of it. 

i remember groceries going missing. mom asked if i wanted more of the brown sugar pop tarts, since i had eaten them all. i told her i hadn’t eaten any and she accused me of lying. i remember her telling me not to drink all of the juice boxes so quickly, and this time i decided against telling her i’d only had 2. 

i remember bleeding, the first time. i woke up in what seemed like a sea of blood, but nothing hurt. i felt between my legs and my fingers came back bloody. i cried as i stripped off my ruined underwear, ruined night shirt. i cried in the shower. when i came back to my room my ballerina music box was open, playing the nutcracker suite softly, and my bloodied clothing id left on the floor was gone. my sheets were changed. a new pair of underwear was laid out at the foot of my bed-dark blue, dark enough to hide blood. my mom wasn’t home from her overnight yet. i put on the new undies and a clean shirt and laid on the floor with wet hair, trying to be closer to the house. 

i remember the first time i truly felt too big. i stood in front of the round vanity mirror in my room, staring at my too-round face, my pudgy stomach. we had run the mile in gym class that day, i was 10 and i had been the last person to finish. huffing and puffing, i had done the mile in over 14 minutes while all of my slender classmates jogged it in an easy 7. i glared at my body in the mirror and cried silently, gripping handfuls of belly fat, and i cut myself for the first time with a pair of too-dull scissors, leaving bleeding welts on my wrists. i cried myself to sleep again, and when i woke my wrists were neatly covered in bandaids. i never found the scissors. over the years all of my sharp objects went missing hours after they broke my skin under my command-scissors, knives, razor blades, box cutters. my ghost couldn’t stand to see me hurt myself.

i remember waking up so many times to see my clothing laid out on the foot of my bed. shirts, skirt, socks, underwear. my school uniform laid out for me so i could stay in bed for even 10 extra minutes. i would roll over, not even aware that i was mumbling “thank you” before dozing off again. i had tried so many times to clumsily pin the uniform skirt, shortening it so i could fit in at school, look less like a nerd. the pins disappeared. my haphazard stitches would be torn out. for years i resented the ghost for condemning me to be one of the uncool girls at school, skirt down to my knees. i would sit on my floor for the hundredth time, muttering into the empty room, stitching my skirt. the stitches never stayed. one day a note appeared, pinned to my ugly plaid skirt with one of the stolen sewing pins. “too short.” i never understood, then. 

i remember feeling heartbroken when i moved out, into my own apartment. i stood in the driveway of my childhood house staring up at it for what seemed like a long time, wondering if my ghost would miss me. when i finally got everything moved into my apartment, i took the longest, hottest shower i could in my new bathroom, feeling the loneliest id ever felt. after i turned the shower off and pulled back the curtain, i saw a big, clumsy heart drawn in the steam on the bathroom mirror. under the heart, in small messy letters, were the words “welcome home!” and my heart soared. my house was never haunted. i was. 

my apartment building was much older than my house had been. i think my ghost preferred it. there were more things to creak, more heavy wooden doors, more crawl spaces. when i went to pee my bathroom door would swing shut, closing me in until i grudgingly washed my hands. when i came home from work each day i would speak into my empty home, telling my invisible friend about my day. sometimes it was good, sometimes bad. when it was bad all i had to do was sit on my couch and close my eyes, and wait for one of my favorite movies to play. my ghost always knew what to put on. when it was good, i would order food and make sure there were enough leftovers to leave on the kitchen counter. breadsticks or pizza would be gone in minutes. the ghost never touched salads, or seafood. if i ever bought boxes of snacks they would be opened by the time i got to them, bags of chips were taken completely with no trace of them ever existing. i didn’t buy groceries for me, i bought them for him. 

i never really stopped crying. but i never really stopped feeling comforted, either. my bad days would stretch on and there would be times where i couldn’t even get up to shower. on those days the shower would turn on and run by itself until i finally peeled myself out of bed and got into it. there would be days where i didn’t eat, and days i ate too much, and cried about it either way. my sharp objects continued to disappear and in their place, notes on scraps of crumpled paper. 

“you look beautiful.”

“have a good day.” 

“i miss you already.” 

i saved every note in a little box on my dresser. i went to work, and came home, and did all of the same things. i talked to my empty rooms. i listened to the creaking, and the AC turning on by itself when it got too warm, and the soft dripping of the faucet. it is so very lonely, being in love with a ghost. 

i said it out loud one day. 

“it’s very lonely, being in love with a ghost.” 

the room didn’t move. in fact, it seemed to get more still. i continued, staring at the hardwood floor, emboldened by the lack of response. 

“you’re always here, but you’re never here. and i know it must be lonely for you, too.” 

the silence deafened me. i got up and went to shower, and when i pulled back the curtain the mirror said “i love you.” 

i squeezed water out of my hair into the bathtub and didn’t say anything. 

my closet slowly started eating my clothes. any dress i would buy that had a hem halfway above my knee, disappeared. i thought back to my school uniform skirts and tried again and again to bring home cute little dresses, to no avail. i stopped trying. i imagined my ghost as some kind of proper victorian gentleman who became offended by the sight of a lady’s kneecaps, and had a hard time reconciling that with the same entity who cleaned my bloody sheets. this spirit confused me sometimes, but the idea that perhaps he was critiquing my fashion sense did make me laugh, even if i wasn’t convinced that was the reason my clothes were going missing. 

there was another thing i never understood. 

i remember the first time i made sparks fly behind my eyes in the privacy of my room. i remember the experimental touches between my own legs, experiments that turned over the years into practiced technique. at first there had always been a twinge of shame, embarrassment about my ghost hearing the quiet, breathy noises i made or worse-seeing me and my jerky movements under the covers, knowing what i was doing. but for all the propriety of a spirit very concerned with my skirt length, there was never a mention or even an allusion that he was aware of my nighttime rituals. i always knew he had to be. my ghost was always there, somewhere. but maybe, i had reasoned with myself over the course of so many years, he left me for those quick private moments, and gave me the autonomy of an occupant who lived in a space that was well and truly their own. maybe he gave me that privacy, i reassured myself as my heart raced against my mattress every night and i thought of the soiled cotton underwear id never seen again. maybe. 

there were more bad days than good, i think. more days where i came home wanting to collapse into arms that didn’t exist, days when i couldn’t even believe i had any tears left in me to cry. days where i wished every single knife in my house hadn’t vanished without a trace and i could make myself feel something other than emptiness. sometimes i spoke about it out loud. sometimes i didn’t and the walls around me seemed to tremble as if wanting to encase me but were unable to. there were always notes. my blankets would always be tucked around me when i woke each morning. the little gestures i had always felt comforted by continued, but my loneliness did, too, and there was a constant sense of desperation in the air of my apartment as though my ghost was searching for something else to give me, something to be the cure to everything that hurt. 

there wasn’t one, i didn’t think. or maybe there was, one. 

i took a box cutter from work. a new one, with a brand new blade, sharp, nothing like the dull scissors’ dragging welts. when i got home i had decided already what the solution was, the cure to everything. i washed my face with cold water in my bathroom sink and when i walked back out into my kitchen i saw, scribbled on the unused dry erase board on my fridge, “i love you.” 

it made me feel confident.

the box cutter in my pocket felt hot as i walked into my bedroom. 

i could be a ghost, too. 

i got in bed and sat against the wall. i didn’t take the blade out from under the covers; i passed it back and forth between my hands and sat there, looking at my room. looking at the decorated walls. at my stuffed animals. it was quiet for a long time, and i didn’t feel like i had anything to say. i sat, and tightened the grip on my decided cure, and then finally i did speak. 

“i’m jealous, in a way.”

only the humming of my fan answered me. 

“it must be lonely. we both are. but we don’t have to be.” 

i sighed. 

“i love you, too. i think i always have. but i just want you to be here. really here. and i know that it doesn’t work like that, and you can’t be. so it’s okay.” 

i finally pulled my hands out from under the covers, holding the box cutter close. i kept my eyes open, because the ghost never did anything when i was looking, and i didn’t want to give him the chance to interfere with the way i wanted to finish writing our story. because it is ours, it’s always been ours, but the pen has always been in my hands.

“i can go there, instead.” 

as i said it i dragged the box cutter as hard as i can up my left forearm and it hurt, but-i didn’t get more than a couple inches up before all of the clothes in my closet flung themselves outwards and i jumped, dropping the blade onto my floor with a plastic clatter. from behind the flurry of hangers and cloth a shape came forward and suddenly-

there was a boy standing in my room. 

bleeding into my mattress, i stared at him. 

boy isn’t really the right word, he looked about my age maybe. if he was older or younger i couldn’t tell. but he looked stricken, pale and dirty, and he had come out of my closet, hands balled into fists at his sides.

i cradled my injured arm to my chest and stared until the room shook as hard as i did and i can’t remember anything else.

i have always lived in a haunted house. i have always believed in ghosts. i have always believed. 

i wake up and it is now. 

i wake up and i’m in bed. i’m in my bed, still, but i’m laying down. my shirt is changed. my sheets are changed. and the boy from my closet is sitting on the edge of my bed next to me, holding my hand. 

he sees me open my eyes and he turns more towards me, and his eyes are blue. they are blue and they are very upset, eyebrows furrowed with hurt, and the hand not holding mine is rubbing the fresh bandages on my left wrist. my arm hurts. i know who he is. 

“it’s you, isnt it.” 

he nods but doesn’t speak, so i keep going. 

“you’re the ghost.” 

he nods again, his shoulders caving around him. his hair is brown and messy. i think of all the scissors he’s stolen from me and wonder if at least one pair was used for grooming purposes. i feel almost delirious. 

he speaks. 

“i’m not a ghost.”

he looks at me again and his eyes are shiny, his mouth a little downturned u on his face. he looks so sad. he’s the saddest boy i’ve ever seen. 

“i wanted to be your ghost. i thought that’s what  
you wanted me to be, and...” 

there is a pause as he takes a shaky breath. 

“...i didn’t know how to be anything else anymore.”

i nod encouragingly because i want him to keep talking. i’ve heard this voice before, i’m realizing, in dreamlike moments as i’m falling asleep or as i’m waking up. he’s talked to me before. my ghost. 

“i hate it when you cry. and i hate it when you hurt. and i never thought...i didn’t think...”

he stops, then starts again. 

“i’m sorry.” 

i look at his hand in mine. dirt around the joints of his fingers. he feels very real. very solid. 

“i love you.” 

i look back up and he’s fixing me with the most searching, imploring expression. i feel pinned by it. 

“i didn’t think you would love me like this. only as a ghost, and i was scared to be anything else. but not as scared as it made me to see you do that.”

i have a lot of things to say but i want to make sure he’s done, first. i’m always the one talking. he’s never gotten to. 

“you can’t go. not like that. you can’t. i’m not there, i’m here.”

i sit up, finally, and he starts to scoot away to give me room but i hold his arm. he feels so real. i touch his arm, his shoulder. i touch his back, and his chest. and the length of his neck between his collarbones and his ear. he shivers a little but goes completely still when i ask, “will you hold me?” 

he is cautious and a little awkward but his arms scoop me up into his lap and he smells like my house-our house? he smells like old wood and the incense i burn, like my detergent, like my sheets. it’s comforting. he’s always been comforting even when he was nothing more than a specter. i don’t even know if he knows how comforting he is. i breathe heavily into his shoulder and say, 

“why do you take my clothes?” 

he stiffens slightly, then slouches back down almost guiltily. 

“only the short dresses. they’re too short.” 

i say nothing and he continues, almost hesitantly. 

“maybe i was your ghost but you’ve always been my girl. i can’t stand those dresses. you look too cute in them.” 

i’m smiling so hard into his shoulder it makes me want to cry. i think about how we’ve started and ended with closets-the closet light turning on to soothe my fear of the dark, and then my closet exploding with activity as he burst out of it to correct my, our, mistakes. i don’t ask how he ended up in my closet. i don’t ask how he ended up hiding around me for what has been almost the entirety of both of our lives. i’m sure he’ll tell me when he is ready. my room gets dark around us as we sit in this little knot of limbs on the edge of my bed. he’s warm and i keep thinking, he’s not a ghost at all. 

“i love you.”

my words are spoken directly to his shoulder and i don’t know if he can even hear them but i keep going. 

“i don’t want to be lonely anymore.” 

his arms tighten around me and there’s a press of a kiss to the top of my head. like some kind of trigger the sensation reminds me of a hundred kisses just like it, maybe more, in the corners of my mind from what felt like dreams. 

“okay.”

is the soft response. followed by a quieter, guilty, 

“i’m sorry. and i love you.”

my arm doesn’t hurt. nothing feels like it hurts, nothing except the tiniest twinge of sadness in my chest when i realize that i have always lived in a haunted house, but not anymore. my ghost is flesh and blood and so am i.


End file.
